This book studies the cinematic techniques that Woody Allen employs in his films, and the third chapter, entitled “Getting Serious: The Antimimetic Emblems in Annie Hall,” analyzes the reflexivity in the scenes of Annie Hall.

Bailey argues that Annie Hall is full of antimimetic emblems – “scenes in which realistic cinema rendering is sacrificed to the expression of a different sort of truth” (37). The writer also argues that Allen uses these scenes as a transition from his comedic style to a more dramatic tone in his films. Ironically, Allen blurs the line between reality and imagination through these techniques to reveal the reality of the scenes. Essentially, instead of undercutting the world of the film, these style choices actually draw the audience into further believing the person onscreen, because Alvy/Allen expresses understandable and common sentiments openly, as when Alvy draws out Marshall McLuhan and acknowledges the unrealistic nature of the act along with the universal desire for such a thing to be possible. Bailey credits these emblems and their effects with giving Allen’s films more weight and lasting quality. These elements take Allen’s work beyond that of other filmmakers of comedies, like Mel Brooks, by getting the audience to feel for the comedic character rather than distance themselves so they can comfortably point and laugh. The essay goes on to visually analyze several scenes in Annie Hall where the subjectivity of the Allen’s character comments on or reveals some other truth about the situation, as in the scenes with Annie’s family and brother.

This source is useful for the discussion of Woody Allen and Annie Hall, because just as Woody Allen’s life does, the film plays with and revels in the mixing of reality and fantasy, of the actual events and the imagined. The delicate interplay between audience and fimmaker/actor relies on this personal, stream-of-consciousness technique in filmmaking - also used in autobiographical documentary.  This source allows one to bring Allen’s work to comment on an additional layer of his personal life or, more accurately, on the difficulty of distinguishing between fact and fiction in Allen’s life and Annie Hall.